Month: May 2010

I've cooked up a bunch of stories and now I'm inviting my friends and strangers to share them. If you go to The Labyrinth Asylum, you'll find 31 stories written over 31 days. They're filled typos and the awkward sentences that happen when thrown together in one day. Now I'm not sure what happens next. …

"You're a good writer, Mom," my 7-year-old son said from the backseat. He has, of course, never read anything written (other than a greeting card or note to the teacher). "Really?" I asked. "How do you know that?" "Because of all those novels," he said. Oh those.

Good writing. Who knows the magic to that? But this I know. You can't get published keeping your writing at home. An agent isn't going to shoot out of the sky and land burning bright with enthusiasm for all things me. Submissions must be sent out. And sent out again. And again. Query letters must …

One day, we ran out of the coffee pods for our coffee maker. We had our French press, but the coffee grinder broke too. I heard clattering in the kitchen. Looking in, I saw my son, six-years-old, standing on a wine box, a mortar and pestle in his hands, grinding the coffee beans himself. "I'm …

My mother often said I had a hard time seeing the world the way it was instead of the way I wanted it to be. But I might not be a writer if I didn't. So, I've been writing a story a day for the month of May. This exercise isn't going to get me …

I've read that aspiring writers should go to writers' conferences. Austin has this agent conference coming up. Now, if I could get an agent and sell a novel, the advance might be, oh, let's be wild optimists, $5,000. Something like 15% goes to the agent. How much is that conference? $439. Plus $50 if you …

Ideally my desk could travel the world and send snaps of itself with beautiful views. Say, where is the writer action figure with desk accessory anyway? In the meantime, in the real world--if that's where I am--I've got a stack of stories and novels with nothing to do but be eviscerated. This month of May, …